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CNN International: U.S. Envoy: We don't want to Repeat Same Mistakes in Gaza; Hegseth: U.S. does not Believe NATO Membership for Ukraine is Realistic Outcome to Negotiated Settlement; Musk Blasts, Bureaucracy, Defends Sweeping DOGE Cuts; Chinese Firm DeepSeek Rattles AI Industry; Real Madrid Stun Man City 3-2 with Late Comeback. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired February 12, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: The people of Gaza calling on both sides to adhere to a ceasefire that is increasingly in danger of

falling apart. It is 04:00 p.m. in Rafah. It's 06:00 p.m. here in Dubai. I'm Eleni Giokos, and this is "Connect the World". It's a special edition.

We're live from the World Government Summit where U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about everything of being closely passed, and there's

plenty to get into. The U.S. Defense Secretary is in Brussels at a Ukraine defense meeting calling on Europe to step up.

And the billionaire who runs President Trump's department of government efficiency stood in the Oval Office to make the case for his massive cuts.

Let's check in on the stock markets in New York. We're about to see an open in about 30 minutes from now. As you can see, everything is in the red.

The DOW Jones down 425 points. This is after U.S. inflation figures were released a short while ago, showing that January consumer prices rose 0.5

percent it was higher than expected, and you can see markets reacting to this quite aggressively. NASDAQ down over 1 percent. We'll check in on

those opening numbers in about 30 minutes.

The long-term future of Gaza and the short-term future of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire increasingly in question today. Israel's Prime Minister is

restating a warning to Hamas made by U.S. President Donald Trump to release hostages as planned this weekend, or Israeli forces go back on the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end and the military will

return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Right, there's ambiguity here. President Trump talked about Hamas freeing all remaining hostages, but the prime minister was not specific

about numbers, and that's for short term concern. Long term plans for Gaza and its population are still very uncertain after the King of Jordan's

visit to the White House.

As King Abdullah looked on Tuesday, President Trump repeated his desire for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and redevelop it. With Jordan and Egypt

accepting that would be a massive influx of Palestinians from the enclave. The king didn't openly oppose the plan, but said Arab countries will offer

an alternative.

Later in a post on the X platform, he restated Jordan's position to displacing any Palestinians in the occupied territories. I want to bring in

Jeremy Diamond from Tel Aviv. Jeremy, always good to have you on. I just want you and our viewers to hear from U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff,

who just spoke to CNN moments ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: I would say that the president has been very clear. He cares about the Palestinian people. What

he also cares about is that we don't repeat the same mistakes we've made for the last five decades. So, we've rebuilt Gaza, destroyed it, rebuilt

it, destroyed it, and I don't know how many times that's happened.

And the president is focused on a much different and more Cogen pathway. He believes in the Palestinian people having a better place to live, having

hope and aspirations for a better life for them and their children, what every parent would want. And going back to a place that's going to take

anywhere between 10 and 20 years to successfully and correctly and efficiently redevelop it, makes no sense at this point in time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: All right, that's very latest from Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff. Jeremy, where do we go from here?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it's very clear, if you listen to both President Trump and to his Envoy Steve Witkoff, that

this administration is not abandoning its plans to permanently displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and to take it over in terms of a U.S.

takeover.

In fact, they are very clearly continuing to double down, and while what you just heard from Witkoff there was talking about the idea of giving a

better life to the Palestinian people, talking about the realities of the rebuilding process that's going to need to happen in Gaza, all of which are

certainly valid considerations.

What he is not talking about there is the fact that President Trump has been clear that this is about permanently displacing those people from

Gaza, a population of more than 2 million people, and turning it into a U.S. held real estate development.

[09:05:00]

Those are very different things than some kind of a temporary solution that would ultimately see Palestinians go back to Gaza and allow them to

continue to pursue their aspirations for statehood. So, we have also seen, of course, that in both Jordan and Egypt, the two countries that Trump

would like to see receive these 2 million plus Palestinian refugees, they are continuing to deny this.

And instead, we expect that Saudi Arabia is going to host some discussions among Jordan and Egypt in particular, to try and present some kind of

alternative solution. We don't know exactly what that will be yet. But of course, all of this discussion about what will come after the war in Gaza

is kind of supplanted by the fact that we are now contemplating a very real possibility that this war could start back up again.

And that is because this ceasefire between Israel and Hamas truly is hanging on by a thread at this moment, following the Israeli Prime

Minister's ultimatum yesterday that if Hamas doesn't release hostages by Saturday at noon, Israel will return to the fight in Gaza. And we know that

troops are already beginning to mobilize along the Gaza border in greater numbers.

That ultimatum from the prime minister didn't have a specific number attached to it, and that's important to note here, because while President

Trump had talked about all of the hostages being freed by Saturday, or the ceasefire should be canceled. Netanyahu didn't give a number.

An Israeli official told me that Israel is expecting that Hamas release nine living Israeli hostages in the coming days, but perhaps the prime

minister is giving himself some wiggle room here for a deal to be brokered by Saturday that would salvage this ceasefire. Hamas, of course, has said

that it won't release any hostages this Saturday unless Israel remedies some of the ceasefire violations that Hamas has alleged.

And there too, we are seeing the door being left open to hostages being released on Saturday if the mediators can bring Israel back in compliance

with the ceasefire agreement, as far as Hamas sees it. So right now, we know that there are active discussions being led by the mediators Egypt and

Qatar to try and resolve this dispute, to try and salvage this ceasefire before Saturday, to try and prevent a return to war.

GIOKOS: Right, Jeremy, great to have you on. Thank you so much. And as you say, weekend is approaching this ultimatum in place. Whether you love him

or hate him, it's safe to say Donald Trump has upended the U.S. presidency, shattering norms on how America deals with its problems, both at home and

abroad, from using tariffs as a foreign policy legend to essentially wiping out the country's primary foreign aid agency, to threaten to take control

of the Panama Canal.

And then suggesting Canada become the 51st state with no legal standing to do so. His approach in Gaza has shocked much of the world. The president

saying somehow, he's going to convince governments in the region to allow the United States to take over the enclave.

All of this in line with Mr. Trump's America First policy as his decision to bring in the world's richest man to take a flame thrower to the

government's budget and its work force. Let's get some insight now from someone who's been in President Trump's inner circle for years, Senior

Advisor to the Trump Vance transition team.

We've got Jason Miller here with us at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Great to have you with us, Jason.

JASON MILLER, SENIOR ADVISER FOR TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN & TRUMP'S TRANSITION TEAM: It's great to be here. Dubai is so beautiful, and the World

Government Summit is so well run.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

MILLER: I hope they do it in the United States next year. It is so beautiful and so well put together. It's very impressive.

GIOKOS: And a lot of important conversations, and I have to say, President Trump as well as Elon Musk definitely top of mind here. The last three

weeks, we've just seen a flood of these executive orders, whether it's, you know, plastic straws, whether it's anything to do with dismantling

birthright citizenship, USAID.

There's so much to -- take us -- give us a glimpse of President Trump's mind and where he's you know, what his agenda is, what he's thinking when

he's been so busy in the first three weeks.

MILLER: So, it's a very unique situation in the United States, because it's only the second time in our country's history where you had a former

president come back in to be president.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

MILLER: So, under President Trump, in the first term, we have very successful economy, rebuilt the military, who had very low illegal

immigration rates that we had four years of what I would say, and Trump supporters would say it was disaster under Joe Biden, but President Trump

has had four years to think about what exactly he wants to do to come in with that force.

And another important thing to know is that his poll numbers right now are literally at their highest ever, because the American public, people who

voted for him like the change he's bringing, even if the media is having a freak out.

GIOKOS: Yeah, well, I think world leaders are also going, you know, what does this mean? We've seen so much confrontation happening, and

specifically withdraw of USAID, which was America's soft power. And there's a big concern that China is going to come in and -- for, you know, fill

this vacuum. Do you believe the President Trump is worried about losing that American soft power?

[09:10:00]

MILLER: So, a couple things to unpack there. Number one, the ultimate soft power now is trade, and that's something that President Trump has

completely reoriented the world to where trade is the ultimate soft power. With regard to USAID, there are hundreds of millions, if not billions of

dollars in wasteful spending that was going out the door and that should be spent with Americans at home.

That's what taxpayers, American taxpayers are funding now critical things such as urgent care, humanitarian aid, a number of places where it's life

or death, that funding is still going to continue, and a lot of the programs will just fold into things such as the Department of Health and

Human Services and others.

But what President Trump has done is exactly what he campaigned on, saying, I'm going to put the focus on America. We're going to spend the money here.

And the other thing, we're running, what $2 trillion deficit every year right now, that national debt is somewhere over 36 trillion. That's

$100,000 per person. That's the biggest driver for inflation. Is the spending that we can't afford.

GIOKOS: Let's talk about what we've been hearing. We've been covering this. I mean, obviously the big news that President Trump wants to displace

Palestinians out of Gaza and also take Gaza essentially. I wonder what you think make of that, because many people saying, well, is he being serious?

Is he going to really go ahead with this, or is this just the beginning of a negotiation? What do you think?

MILLER: Well, keep in mind, during President Trump's first term, we had peace in the Middle East, and I remember when the president was elected in

2016 people laughed when he said he could bring peace to the Middle East, and he did exactly that under Joe Biden, of course, has fallen apart.

And what President Trump realizes that I think leaders for decades should have locked in on is the fact that you can't just keep putting a band aid

over the continued conflict. At some point you're going to have to come up with a more longer-term solution, something that's going to work a lot,

that's going to have to do with economic development --

GIOKOS: -- going to work taking Gaza?

MILLER: I think it's a very unique idea.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

MILLER: I think it's something that makes people think it's definitely if it's not the first then it's maybe the second topic that everybody here has

brought up with me. But President Trump wants to stop the killing. I think too many leaders in the past have said, we're just going to temporarily

pause the killing. President Trump wants to stop the killing make Middle East peaceful once again. If there's anyone who can do it, I think it's

him.

GIOKOS: Let's talk about Elon Musk, and it's really fascinating to just see how you know entrenched he is, and what we're seeing coming out of the

White House right now? How much influence do you think he's got over the president? Do you think he has to share -- President Trump has to share the

limelight, in many ways, with Elon Musk. And do you think that you know this relationship is going to last?

MILLER: I think the president very much enjoys that he's able to put Elon Musk to work putting all these agenda items forward in his administration.

So, the president said he was going to cut the wasteful spending. He said he was going to radically change the way the government is done in

Washington, the United States, is way too bloated.

It's way too big. And Musk is going in like a wrecking ball and doing exactly that, but it, I think, faster speed than most people realize. And

the thing with Elon Musk is you have someone who himself thinks outside the box, who thinks creatively. And I think that's something that's needed,

because for decades.

The American government has just grown and grown and grown. Everyone promises to fix it. They don't. The difference here is a reminder, the

swamp, as we call it, the bureaucratic state in the United States. They start to fight back when you start trying to take them out, when you start

trying to displace them and put the power back in the hands of the people. So, it's something that we expected. I think Elon Musk is doing a very good

job for the president.

GIOKOS: Right, Jason Miller great to have you with us and enjoy Dubai.

MILLER: Thank you.

GIOKOS: Great to see you. Much appreciated for your time. All right, America's new Defense Secretary says returning to Ukraine's pre-2014

borders, is unrealistic and ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine. He takes it spoke last hour at NATO headquarters, where Kyiv's allies are meeting to

discuss the nearly three-year long war. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders, is an unrealistic objective.

Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security

guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.

This must not be Minsk 3.0 that said the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated

settlement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Well, his comments came just hours after Moscow launched another early morning round of strikes on Kyiv, killing one. Ukraine's President

says the attack shows Russia is not preparing for peace. I want to bring in Global Affairs Analyst, Michael Bociurkiw and he's a Senior Fellow at the

Atlantic Council, and he's live from Kyiv to help us put all of this into context.

Welcome, Mike. Always good to have you on. Your reaction from those new comments from Pete Hegseth, what do you make of that?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, SENIOR FELLOW AT ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Good to be with you, Eleni, well, I'm not surprising.

[09:15:00]

I mean, it's pretty consistent with what. Mr. Hegseth said during his confirmation hearings, he also said that the U.S. needs to pivot to Indo-

Pacific -- China. But I was a bit surprised. I mean, he actually knew what Minsk was. I don't think he knew during his confirmation hearings what

those agreements contained.

But you know, the feeling here in Ukraine is, I think they probably feel, after hearing this, is that they really have to take measures to end up at

the negotiating table and not on the menu, but day by day, almost hour for hour, it feels like the U.S. has less of Ukraine's back, and that's very

worrisome.

GIOKOS: Yeah, well, you're in Kyiv right now. You told our producers it was a particularly violent night. Tell us what you've seen on the ground.

BOCIURKIW: Yeah, there were 7 ballistic missiles on 123 drones, and only about half of the drones were brought down, which is very unusual. So, this

is like a Russia sending a tsunami of missiles and drones. And I think at one time overnight, there are four or five fires right here in Kyiv.

So, it was a very, very light violent night, and yet another night where people are not getting sleep, children are anxious and that sort of thing

so. But it goes to show that unless the West is able to deter Mr. Putin even further, he will actually push his luck. And one more thing, Eleni, I

think, after Mr. Hegseth's comments about NATO, do not be surprised.

Do not be surprised, if Mr. Putin tries to test that NATO principle of indefensible borders. So, for example, if they were to, for example, send

missiles into Estonia or Poland, God forbid, he would like to test whether NATO will respond robustly. That could happen.

GIOKOS: Yeah. I'm curious. You know, President Trump said that Ukraine could be Russian one day. What are you reading into this? And you know you

were talking about Ukraine not being on the menu, but being at the negotiating table.

BOCIURKIW: Right.

GIOKOS: So, tell me what you're reading into this rhetoric.

BOCIURKIW: Well, it's pretty bad. Of course, on the one hand, we have to take whatever Mr. Trump says with a grain of salt, because it seems to me,

to me and many others that whatever he spots out is from whatever someone whispered into his ear the minutes beforehand.

But I mean, I think he's talking with the same carelessness as he's talking about Gaza and his so-called plan for that piece of land. It's a lot of

absurdity what he's saying, and it's just not practical. And I think you're also hearing Mr. Trump echoing what Mr. Putin is saying in many, many

different statements over the past few days.

So again, lots and lots of concern here in Kyiv, and if the mood was dark before it's even much, much darker now after these statements.

GIOKOS: Yeah, so the American school teacher, Marc Fogel, is now back in the United States. CNN, confirmed that a Russian citizen was released in

exchange. Here's what Mr. Trump said about the exchange. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think there's good will in terms of the war, it could be a big important part of getting

the war over with Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Right, he says there's good will to getting the war over with Ukraine.

BOCIURKIW: I'm shaking my head, you know, because this was basically low hanging fruit, Marc Fogel.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

BOCIURKIW: It was a very, very small crime. I mean, there are Americans behind bars in Russia right now with much bigger kind of targets on the

back, one of them being Ksenia Khavana, a U.S. Russian duo national, who was put behind bars for 12 years for treason, just for donating $52 to the

Ukrainian charity.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

BOCIURKIW: So, I don't -- I can't figure out, and neither can anyone else how this is related to ending the Ukraine war any sooner? I think it's more

a case of the two leaders testing each other out

GIOKOS: So very quickly, Michael, USAID end of assistance to Ukraine. What is going on, on the ground?

BOCIURKIW: Terrible. Ukraine was getting about $35 billion since the full- scale invasion by Russia -- USAID, the aid. And right now, for example, we have transformers that were on their way to Kyiv to replace those that were

blown up by the Russians. They're stuck at the border.

The East Europe Foundation, one of the biggest nonprofits here. They've had to already start laying off people. And they do things, Eleni, like they

build bomb shelters in schools. They do mine awareness programs. These are all things that, at the end of the day, keep Ukrainians alive.

And one more quick thing the other USAID money, billions of it going towards repairing port infrastructure. If those ports are not operating,

bread or, sorry, grain and barley, is not going to leave Ukrainian ports for places like Egypt and the United States that will have a terrible

knock-on effect, too.

GIOKOS: Yeah. All right. Michael Bociurkiw, great to have you with us. Thank you so much. Right, we're going to a short break. We'll be back with

much more here from the World Government Summit in Dubai.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:00]

GIOKOS: Tech billionaire and one of President Donald Trump's most powerful advisers, Elon Musk is once again defending DOGE's extensive cost cutting

methods to reshape the government, which includes downsizing the federal workforce. His remarks came during a rare public appearance in the Oval

Office with his young son and the president by his side on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEP OF TESLA: We have this unelected fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has, in a lot of

ways, currently, more power than any elected representative. And this is -- there's not something that people want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Well, CNN, Alayna Treene joins us now from the White House. Alayna, good to have you with us. These images, the messaging, all of that what are

we reading into it right now? Again, it's all about cost cutting and being aggressive in doing so.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, and I really did see that moment, Eleni, in the Oval Office. Just, you know, especially after we

saw last week with Time Magazine, they released a cover of Elon Musk sitting behind the resolute desk, of course, kind of insinuating that he

has just as much power, or nearly as much power, as the president.

And then we did see him in person yesterday, this time standing beside the resolute desk next to the president, who was, of course, sitting there. And

another notable thing as well as we did see President Donald Trump, he sat at that desk the whole time. He didn't stand up, and he really permitted

Musk to take questions for roughly 30 minutes.

This was the first time we've really heard from Musk, certainly at length, not only ever since the election. But also, since this DOGE purview, this

idea of, you know, hunting down waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government, kind of became part of his portfolio.

So definitely a very fascinating moment as we continue to see his influence grow. But one thing as well that's really notable, I think is the reason

behind why this was happening. You know, there's a ton of questions and skepticism coming from all corners of Washington, from Capitol Hill to the

courts, trying to challenge and sometimes criticizing what Musk and DOGE are doing, and questioning as well whether he has the authority to do so.

Keep in mind here, Musk is an unelected official. He's what is known as a special government employee. And so, there's a lot of questions about

accountability here, and whether or not Musk really should have the authority to really take the sledge hammer to all of these different

agencies, as well as gut the federal work force at that level.

Now a key thing that I also found very interesting about that session yesterday was when he brought up transparency. Musk said, quote,

transparency is what builds trust, and insisted that all of his team's efforts and what they are doing is being made public on their social media

accounts as well as the DOGE website.

[09:25:00]

But I do really think, Eleni, that this is going to a key question moving forward about what does transparency actually look like, because, as we've

seen so far, a lot of critics are saying there's actually been very little transparency. A lot of what we are learning about what DOGE is doing has

been coming from sources inside the government who are coming to reporters like us and telling us what is happening.

There's also been a lot of people who are questioning, you know, what is going on with DOGE? How am I being affected? I hear from a ton of federal

workers who are questioning whether they going to be laid off, questioning whether some of the buyouts and whatnot that they are offering is actually

legitimate. And so, I do think transparency and accountability are still key questions we need answers from moving forward, Eleni.

GIOKOS: Absolutely, and causing a massive amount of uncertainty as well. Alayna Treene, thank you so much for that update. We're going to a short

break. And coming up artificial intelligence companies are putting big investments in the Gulf. I'll be speaking to a leading tech founder based

in Dubai about what this region has to offer. We'll bring you that updates in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIOKOS: Welcome back. I'm Eleni Giokos of the World Government Summit in Dubai, and you're watching "Connect the World". These are your headlines.

U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his plans for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and move Palestinians there into neighboring countries.

As he hosted Jordan's King Abdullah at the White House. The king said Arab countries will offer an alternative plan, and later restated Jordan's

opposition to displaying any Palestinians in the occupied territories. New U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told Kyiv's allies that they need

to take more responsibility for Ukraine.

And that the country returning to its pre-2014 borders is unrealistic. He made the comments a short time ago at the NATO headquarters as the U.K.

leads the Ukraine Defense Contract group for the first time today. And under the Biden Administration, these meetings were convened by the U.S.

The Kremlin says a Russian citizen who was being held in U.S. detention has been released in exchange for the American teacher, Marc Fogel. It said his

identity could not be revealed until he is back on Russian soil.

[09:30:00]

Fogel was welcomed back to the U.S. by President Trump on Tuesday night after spending more than three years in detention in Russia. Right, time to

check in on the opening bell in New York. That is the sound of the start of trade in New York and red or round, in fact.

Futures were showing downward spiral today as market participants showing that they do not like what they're seeing on the inflation front, we

actually had core inflation released a short time ago. Consumer prices jumping 0.5 percent for the month of January, if you exclude volatile food

and energy prices.

CPI rose 0.4 percent on the month, and 3.3 percent for the past 12 months. It is not what markets had expected. They were expecting much better

figure, as you can see, big reaction coming through DOW Jones, NASDAQ and S&P firmly in the red right now. DOW Jones down almost 400 points as we

speak.

Right sovereign wealth funds across the globe are pouring billions into artificial intelligence. OpenAI's Sam Altman was reportedly in the emirates

to discuss fundraising with the Abu Dhabi Investment Group MGX, which is backed by Mubadala's sovereign wealth fund early I sat down with Div

Turakhia, a Tech Entrepreneur and a Member of the UAE Government AI Council, and asked him what message he thought Sam Altman was sending by

courting these investors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIV TURAKHIA, UAE GOVERNMENT AI COUNCIL MEMBER: If you look at the region overall, there are lots of sovereign wealth funds that are highly

sophisticated, especially the ones in Abu Dhabi. They have -- they're very institutional, and they've been deploying capital and significant capital

across all kinds of businesses.

AI as a sector is going to be something that they should logically invest in very significantly over the next 20 years, because it's almost like in -

- imagine telling you today that, hey, my business advantage is I use a computer. That's not really an advantage, right? I mean, if you think of it

from today's standpoint, AI is going to be that in three to five years.

I mean, it's going to be in everything. And hence, in making fundamental investments in AI, makes a lot of sense for the region. And, yeah, these

sovereign wealth funds need to deploy a significant amount of capital, and fundamental models require significant amount of capital. So, I think it's

a good match.

GIOKOS: And of course, OpenAI is seeing opportunity here, right in terms of role it could play in the region?

TURAKHIA: Absolutely, I think there are multiple advantages, because it's not just capital, but it's strategic and smart capital because of

everything else that they're invested in, and also because of all of AI requires significant amount of energy, and a lot of other investments made

by the sovereign wealth funds here have access to significant energy, which is a core requirement of building any AI business.

GIOKOS: And you're seeing so many data centers springing up in this region, right?

TURAKHIA: Yeah.

GIOKOS: So, you've got that investment capability as well, and you've got a region that's actually very committed.

TURAKHIA: I think there are a couple of advantages of data centers in the region. One is the region is extremely safe and secure overall. The second

one being that you have enough land that's available, you can build fast. So, you can build a data center much faster than you can in some of the

Western countries.

And then they have excess energy capacity, which is a big issue, right? Because, like, if you take some states in the U.S., it would take them

five, seven years to build the same thing that can be built here in a year. And you need that compute capacity. You need the size and scale in the data

center. So, the faster you can move, the better. And hence this makes sense as a location.

GIOKOS: It's very hot, though -- cooling and retailing the heat --

TURAKHIA: Right, it is hot today, but yeah, data centers are designed in all kinds of other style.

GIOKOS: I know and there's open water-cooling systems -- I know it's really fascinating. OK, so Sam Altman, Elon Musk.

TURAKHIA: Yeah.

GIOKOS: Elon, say, you know what I want to buy OpenAI, Sam Altman goes. You know what I'm going to buy Twitter, and we'll X now, then things were like

a much.

TURAKHIA: I think --

GIOKOS: I mean, it's really fascinating to see this kind of competitive environment.

TURAKHIA: -- in some sense, they're trolling each other, right?

GIOKOS: Yes.

TURAKHIA: Because neither of those deals are realistic in any form. I mean, they could be if the numbers are much larger and people were a lot more

serious. And I'm not saying that they don't have the money to pay the 100 billion, but I'm sure he doesn't want to sell it for the 100.

GIOKOS: -- think it's worth it.

TURAKHIA: It's hard to say.

GIOKOS: Yeah.

TURAKHIA: When you're basically saying that, hey, I want to buy out a business entirely that is in such an early stage of growth, it's hard to

value, but definitely way more than the 100 that they're thinking right now.

GIOKOS: Well, it's interesting, because obviously with DeepSeek, kind of stepping into the market, shaking things up, and saying, well, we can do it

so much cheaper, so much better, so much more efficient. Where we thinking things, are we?

[09:35:00]

TURAKHIA: One, I think it's really cool to see that when you, constraint any group of people with lesser resources, the innovation that comes out is

pretty incredible. That's one way to think of it. I love the fact that they open sourced it, and then people can see, you know what it is all about.

But at the same time, don't forget that fundamental research takes a lot of investments. So, for example, if you spent 10 years researching something,

wrote a book, and somebody else had a printing press, and they reprinted your book. Obviously, it's going to be cheaper for them.

I'm not saying that, that is just it. Obviously, there are a lot of smarts that were involved in that sort of a printing press, but it's obviously

easier and cheaper, and in the fact that they did it has allowed people to think through a lot more type of solutions that allow AI to become a lot

more accessible to everybody.

GIOKOS: -- well, that's the thing with new technology, right?

TURAKHIA: Yeah.

GIOKOS: So, if you're first you have first mover advantage. You're doing all the research and doing all the hard-core innovation, and then it's easy

to --

TURAKHIA: I was thinking of it always as a first mover disadvantage, because you have to spend a lot more money finding what works, right?

Because if you look at some of the largest companies in the world, they were not necessarily the first more. Google wasn't the first search engine.

GIOKOS: Yes.

TURAKHIA: You know, there you had Yahoo, AltaVista, web crawler, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, Doc. There were so many before Google, right before Google

basically became Google. I think it's same similarly Facebook wasn't the first social network, right? Your friends, store your, my space.

I think it's early to say who is going to be a winner, but generally in tech, the way I think about it is the top two or three companies end up

taking material market share. And I think it's very, very early to figure out who that's going to be at this point of time. And obviously everybody

wants that to be, wants to be that.

But I think the fundamental models have come a long way, and I think the big difference is going to be who's got the highest quality of data, that's

unique, that is going to be a significant winner in the game.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS: Right. An update on who the potential winners and losers are when it comes to artificial intelligence, and speaking of the losers and perhaps

the risks, artificial intelligence is disrupting virtually every industry on the planet, including the art world, and not everyone is happy about it.

Thousands of artists have signed a letter calling on Christie's New York to cancel its upcoming sale of art created by AI, but the Director of Digital

Arts at the prestigious Auction House says that this is a new frontier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE GILES, CHRISTIE'S DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL ART SALES: It's definitely not a substitute for agency, and it is not a way to create more mediocre art

quicker. It is a way to enhance what the artist can do and even push the boundaries of art and creativity into a completely new dimension.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Well, the authors of the letter, however, say that the models used to create these pieces are explorative (ph) because they are trained on

copyrighted work. Writing, your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies' mass theft of

human artists' work.

Well, it was a familiar sight for Manchester City fans on Tuesday as they see another lately turn into defeat at the hands of Real Madrid for a while

on Tuesday night, it looked like Manchester City had gotten it done. We are going to very short break --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:00]

GIOKOS: Right. Welcome back. I'm Eleni Giokos at the World Government Summit in Dubai. I want to quicker take quick look at the state of the

markets in the United States, and they opened about 10 minutes ago, and we are seeing everything in the red. You've got the DOW losing ground around

450 points to the red.

And as you can see, NASDAQ and S&P 500 taking a knock behind this drop is a hotter than expected inflation number for the month of January that came in

at 0.5 percent if you remove food and energy, it came in at 0.4 percent so we're looking at a number that scaring investors right now could be

indicating that inflation is not going to temper anytime soon.

And of course, impacting interest rates down the line and whether we will see more possibility of hikes, or perhaps whether we are going to see

interest rates unchanged. These are the markets in the United States right now reacting aggressively to that January CPI number.

All right, we'll check in on those numbers later. For now, though Tuesday night, it looked like Manchester City had done enough in the Champions

League payoffs clash against Real Madrid. But as we seen so often the season, a victory turned into defeat later on. And now they have it all to

do in the second leg next week. Amanda Davies joins us now. Amanda, good to see you.

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORT: Hi, Eleni, people wondering if there is any way back, any future for Manchester City in this year's Champions League

after that defeat from this position that we're becoming so used to them being in the lead and then letting that lead slip.

But fascinating night of football last night and plenty more to come later this evening, and that's what we're looking at in just a couple of minutes

in "World Sport". Don't go anywhere.

GIOKOS: Fantastic. We'll see you right after the short break. And I'll be back at the top of the hour with more, "Connect the World". Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:00]

(WORLD SPORT)

[10:00:00]

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